Who can use this feature?
Chat AI is your always-on website assistant, designed to engage visitors, answer questions, and book meetings without the need for manual scripts or constant updates. By configuring a few simple settings, you can shape how Chat AI learns, speaks, and responds to your audience. This guide walks you through each step of the setup process, enabling you to launch quickly and confidently.
Table of Contents
How to Set Up Chat AI
Setting up Chat AI is a bit like building a team member from scratch. You’ll start by teaching it what to know, then decide how it should sound, give it instructions to follow in every conversation, define the intents to watch for, and finally test how it performs.
All of these pieces come together to form an assistant that feels human, reflects your brand, and drives real results on your website. You can find these Chat AI settings under Chili Agents in your workspace.
Before proceeding, we also recommend checking our Chat AI FAQ documentation for more helpful information!
Knowledge Base
The Knowledge Base is Chat AI's memory. This is where you load the content that will be used to respond accurately to visitor questions. You can:
- Upload documents like product guides, FAQs, or case studies.
- Add URLs from your website, so the AI can pull directly from live pages.
- Keep resources up to date to ensure responses are always current.
The more relevant content you add, the smarter and more reliable Chat AI becomes.
You can find the Knowledge Base under Assets. The table shows each resource with its page count, import status, who imported it, and when it was last synced.
When adding resources, you have two options available: Website or Files.
From Website
You have three options when adding website content: Whole website, Sitemap, and A specific list of webpages.
Whole website – Scan a URL to discover all pages under it. Select the ones you want to import. You can choose the scan depth:
- Shallow (1 level) – Only pages directly linked from the URL you enter.
- Medium (2 levels) – Pages linked from the URL, plus one level deeper. This is the default.
- Deep (3 levels) – Three levels of linked pages from your starting URL.
The whole website stays scoped to the single domain you enter.
Sitemap – Scan pages from your website's sitemap. Select the ones you want to import. Unlike Whole website, Sitemap reads your full sitemap and picks up subdomains too (e.g. help.yourdomain.com, app.yourdomain.com). Use this if you want to capture content across your entire web presence in one scan. Recommended for large websites.
A specific list of webpages – Enter individual page URLs separated by commas. Only these pages will be imported.
Once a scan completes, results are displayed in a tree grouped by URL path. You can drill down and selectively import whole sections (e.g., everything under /products) or individual pages. Results load progressively, meaning you can start selecting pages while the scan is still running.
Resource Status
Once imported, each resource displays a status column showing:
- Imported – Content has been successfully imported and is available to Chat AI.
- Importing – Import is currently in progress.
- Failed – Import encountered an error.
Status is shown both at the resource level and for individual sub-links within a resource.
Tree View
Resources with sub-links are displayed in an expandable tree grouped by URL path. You can expand the tree to see how pages are organized and check the import status at every level.
From Files
Simply upload your files.
Personality
This is where you bring Chat AI to life. In the Personality tab, you can:
- Select a name and upload an avatar that aligns with your brand;
- Determine the tone of voice (e.g., professional, casual, friendly);
- Control how long responses should be, short and direct, or more detailed.
These settings help ensure the assistant feels like a natural extension of your team, not a generic bot.
Guidance
Guidances are instructions Chat AI follows in every conversation. They shape how Chat AI replies. Use them to control:
- Tone and format. For example, end every reply with an offer to help, or ask one question per message;
- Topics to stay on or avoid. For example, keep the conversation about your product and your industry;
- How to handle sensitive subjects. For example, do not share exact prices, and do not criticize competitors.
Guidances do not trigger actions. To send a visitor down a path, such as booking a meeting or reaching a rep, use a Strategy.
To add one, select Create New Guidance, then give it a title and the instruction Chat AI should follow.
Strategy
Strategies are intents Chat AI listens for, such as a visitor asking for a demo or asking to speak to someone. When a visitor’s message matches a Strategy, Chat AI sends the visitor down the path you connected to that Strategy in your Journey. For example:
- Meeting requests: A visitor types “I want to book a demo.” Chat AI follows the path that books a meeting;
- Live chat: A visitor asks to speak to someone. Chat AI follows the path that routes them to a rep;
- Support: A visitor reports a bug or asks a troubleshooting question. Chat AI follows the path that points them to your support team.
To add one, select Create New Strategy, then give it a name and a description of when to trigger it. You connect each Strategy to its path in the Detect Strategy section of the Chat AI node. For more information, refer to Enable Chat AI in Journeys.
Testing
Before going live, use the Testing tab to see how Chat AI responds in practice. You can:
- Type in questions as if you were a visitor. For example:
- “Can I see your pricing?”
- “I want to book a call.”
- “Do you integrate with Chili Piper?”
- Review the AI’s responses.
- Mark them as “good” or “bad” to provide feedback.
Testing helps you fine-tune Strategies and Guidances until you’re confident Chat AI is handling conversations the way you want.
Once you have Chat AI set up, it’s time to add Chat AI to your Journeys. For more information, refer to Enable Chat AI in Journeys.
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